Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features one of the great blueswomen, Etta James. Enjoy!
Etta James - Something's Got A Hold On Me
“When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that, in our democracy, government is us.”
-- Barack Obama
News and Opinion
US Threatened Germany Over Snowden, Vice Chancellor Says
German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said this week in Homburg that the U.S. Government threatened to cease sharing intelligence with Germany if Berlin offered asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden or otherwise arranged for him to travel to that country. “They told us they would stop notifying us of plots and other intelligence matters,” Gabriel said.
The Vice Chancellor delivered a speech in which he praised the journalists who worked on the Snowden archive, and then lamented the fact that Snowden was forced to seek refuge in “Vladimir Putin’s autocratic Russia” because no other nation was willing and able to protect him from threats of imprisonment by the U.S. Government (I was present at the event to receive an award). That prompted an audience member to interrupt his speech and yell out: “why don’t you bring him to Germany, then?”
Afterward, however, when I pressed the Vice Chancellor (who is also head of the Social Democratic Party, as well as the country’s Economy and Energy Minister) as to why the German Government could not and would not offer Snowden asylum — which, under international law, negates the asylee’s status as a fugitive — he told me that the U.S. government had aggressively threatened the Germans that if they did so, they would be “cut off” from all intelligence sharing. That would mean, if the threat were carried out, that the Americans would literally allow the German population to remain vulnerable to a brewing attack discovered by the Americans by withholding that information from their government.
This is not the first time the U.S. has purportedly threatened an allied government to withhold evidence of possible terror plots as punishment. In 2009, a British national, Binyam Mohamed, sued the U.K. Government for complicity in his torture at Bagram and Guantanamo. The High Court ordered the U.K. Government to provide Mohamed’s lawyers with notes and other documents reflecting what the CIA told British intelligence agents about Mohamed’s abuse.
In response, the U.K. Government insisted that the High Court must reverse that ruling because the safety of British subjects would be endangered if the ruling stood. Their reasoning: the U.S. Government had threatened the British that they would stop sharing intelligence, including evidence of terror plots, if they disclosed what the Americans had told them in confidence about Mohamed’s treatment – even if the disclosure were ordered by the High Court as part of a lawsuit brought by a torture victim. British government lawyers even produced a letter from an unnamed Obama official laying out that threat.
Not that it matters a hell of a lot, since the lack of such an authorization will not stop the President from murdering and bombing anybody or anything he damned well pleases:
Authorization for military force stalls
More than a month after the White House sought Congress’ blessing for the expanding war against the terrorist group, congressional action has gotten bogged down in partisan rancor and divergent viewpoints over what the war should try to accomplish, how long the administration should be authorized to wage it, and what level of force will be required. Some say that the liberals who insisted the White House include extra conditions, such as a deadline and limits on ground troops, overplayed their hand, undercutting potential Republican support.
“I just don’t hear many people standing up for what the president has proposed, so I think we’re kind of moving beyond that,” the panel’s chairman, Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Texas), told reporters Wednesday. ...
The Senate doesn’t appear to be in any greater hurry to resolve the issue than the House. In a hearing on the proposed war resolution before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week, Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) played down any chance that a vote is in the offing. The House Foreign Affairs Committee, which shares lead jurisdiction over the issue, has no plans to hold more hearings on the proposal, an aide said Wednesday.
Senate Republicans Rebuff House Colleagues Over Defense Spending Caps
Senate Republicans on Wednesday released an austere budget that maintains strict caps on military spending and cuts trillions of dollars from health care and welfare, sending a rebuff to their House colleagues.
House Republicans are trying to evade the spending caps by adding close to $40 billion to military spending through an “emergency” war funding account that is not subject to the limits. Not only did Senate budget writers not follow suit, they included language in their budget requiring 60 votes in the Senate on any measure that used that approach.
“You can’t say something is war spending just to get around the caps,” a Senate Budget Committee aide told reporters.
Over all, the Senate version hews closely to the budgetary intent of the House proposal. It repeals the Affordable Care Act, turns Medicaid and food stamps into block grants and cuts domestic programs to balance the budget by 2025 without tax increases. The Senate budget also relies on a significant gimmick: It repeals the health law but also assumes that $2 trillion from the law’s tax increases continues to flow into the Treasury.
But the primary flash point is likely to be over military spending. The budget does little to allay concerns of Republican defense hawks that spending caps imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011 are significantly undermining Defense Department operations. Rather than adding spending above the cap levels, the Senate plan creates what is known as a “deficit neutral reserve fund,” which would allow negotiators later this year to reach an accord that overrides the 2011 budget law.
The approach does not have unanimous Republican support.
Obama: I Should’ve Closed Gitmo on Day One
In response to a question about what advice he’d give to his younger self on taking office, President Obama said he wishes he’d closed the Guantanamo Bay detention center on day one, and simply ordered the detainees moved elsewhere. ...
This admission is in stark contrast to what the White House has been saying all along, that the president had been working hard to close the facility and still intended to get it done.
Instead, Obama admits he simply decided he had other priorities and had more or less given up on the matter in pretty short order. The plan now, it seems, is to just keep the facility open forever to avoid any political arguments.
Odierno: Allies Might Put Troops in Syria to Back Rebel Trainees
Speaking today at the Senate Armed Services Committee, Army Chief Gen. Ray Odierno said it was possible that unnamed countries within the US coalitionagainst ISIS might be willing to send ground troops to Syria when the “rebel army” the US plans to train is ready.
Odierno’s comments were extremely light on details, offering no names, no numbers, and no indication what these troops, which he dubbed “enablers” might be doing, if they come around at all.
Rather, the comments seem meant to tamp down expectations that this non-existent rebel force, which the Pentagon hasn’t even started training in earnest, would be able to function independently, let alone able to quickly conquer Syria on behalf of the US.
This article is worth a click and a full read. Hat tip civil wingnut:
The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion
Thirteen years ago, the intelligence community concluded in a 93-page classified document used to justify the invasion of Iraq that it lacked "specific information" on "many key aspects" of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.
But that's not what top Bush administration officials said during their campaign to sell the war to the American public. Those officials, citing the same classified document, asserted with no uncertainty that Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear weapons, concealing a vast chemical and biological weapons arsenal, and posing an immediate and grave threat to US national security. ...
The CIA released a copy of the NIE in 2004 in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, but redacted virtually all of it, citing a threat to national security. Then last year, John Greenwald, who operates The Black Vault, a clearinghouse for declassified government documents, asked the CIA to take another look at the October 2002 NIE to determine whether any additional portions of it could be declassified.
The agency responded to Greenwald this past January and provided him with a new version of the NIE, which he shared with VICE News, that restores the majority of the prewar Iraq intelligence that has eluded historians, journalists, and war critics for more than a decade. (Some previously redacted portions of the NIE had previously been disclosed in congressional reports.) ...
One of the most significant parts of the NIE revealed for the first time is the section pertaining to Iraq's alleged links to al Qaeda. In September 2002, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claimed the US had "bulletproof" evidence linking Hussein's regime to the terrorist group. ...
But the NIE said its information about a working relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq was based on "sources of varying reliability" — like Iraqi defectors — and it was not at all clear that Hussein had even been aware of a relationship, if in fact there were one.
Iraq, Libya...Iran? US Activists Mark War Anniversaries with Spring Rising
March 19 marks two gloomy anniversaries: the 12th anniversary of US invasion of Iraq and the 5th anniversary of the NATO intervention in Libya. Both overthrew Arab dictators; both left the local people in such horrific straits that many of them look back with nostalgia to the days of Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi. ...
On the anniversaries of these two epic failures in Iraq and Libya, anti-war activists are gathering for four days of actions from March 18-21. They will protest the past interventions, the present-day US participation in wars in the Middle East and the possibility of a new war with Iran. “As people are being killed by the Empire every day, billions of dollars that could be used for education, housing, healthcare, and sustainable and clean forms of energy are being poured into these Imperial wars for the profit of a few and the heartache of many,” said Spring Rising organizer Cindy Sheehan, a mother whose son was killed in Iraq.
The activities include a “spring cleaning of Congress,” where activists will march into the offices of the most hawkish members of Congress, dusting off the cobwebs of war and the fingerprints of military contractors. They’ll take a bus tour of warmakers and their enablers, including the Pentagon, the FBI, the lobby group AIPAC and the right-wing American Enterprise Institute. The gathering will culminate at a rally at the White House on Saturday, March 21
Netanyahu Victory Lays Bare Israel as Racist, Colonial State
Netanyahu Unmasks Israel
For years, U.S. politicians have rejected allegations of Israeli racism and excused mistreatment of the Palestinians as a temporary necessity that would be fixed by a two-state solution. But Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has destroyed those arguments in his panic to keep his job.
Desperate to win reelection, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stripped off Israel’s mask and exposed the ugliness that has deformed his country over the past several decades. He abandoned the subterfuge of a two-state solution, exposed the crass racism that underlies Israeli politics, and revealed Israel’s blatant control of the U.S. Congress.
For years, these realities were known to many Americans, but – if they spoke up – they were condemned as anti-Semites, so most stayed silent to protect their careers and reputations. But – given Netanyahu’s brazen admissions – the American people may have little choice but to finally take notice of this troubling reality and demand a change in U.S. policy.
The truth is that the two-state solution has been a fiction for at least the past two decades, dying in 1995 with the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. But the two-state illusion still served important political purposes both for Israelis, who would pay it lip service while continuing their steady encroachment on Palestinian lands, and for U.S. politicians who could point to the mirage as an excuse not to pressure Israel too hard on its human rights violations.
Yet, whenever any U.S. official actually tried to reach that shimmering oasis of a two-state solution, it would recede into the distance. Then, the Israelis would rely on their friends and allies in the news media and politics to blame the Palestinians. Now, however, the illusion of Israel seeking such an outcome in good faith has been lost in Netanyahu’s anything-goes determination to keep his office – a case of political expediency trumping strategic expediency.
From now on, there’s no pretending that “standing with Israel” doesn’t mean kneeling in an obsequious acceptance of Netanyahu’s cruelty toward the Palestinians and cooperation in an illegal and aggressive war against Iran.
Obama snubs Netanyahu and criticises Israeli PM's 'divisive rhetoric'
The White House has made clear its dismay at Binyamin Netanyahu’s sweeping victory in the Israeli elections with a stinging rebuke of the “divisive rhetoric” used by the Israeli leader in the closing stages of the election.
President Obama has not called to congratulate Netanyahu, who is now attempting to build a coalition between rightwing parties and his own Likud, which won decisively in parliamentary elections on Tuesday.
But the White House said it would be forced to re-evaluate its policy on the Middle East peace process after Netanyahu abandoned a prior commitment to an independent Palestinian state, apparently to shore up support among conservatives in Israel.
Obama’s press secretary, Josh Earnest, reaffirmed the president’s belief in the two-state solution, and strongly condemned Netanyahu’s decision to rally support with incendiary remarks about a high turnout among Israeli Arab voters. Netanyahu used a 28-second video on election day to warn that Israeli Arabs were being bussed to the polls “in droves”.
“The United States and this administration is deeply concerned about rhetoric that seeks to marginalise Arab Israeli citizens,” Earnest said. “It undermines the values and democratic ideals that have been important to our democracy and an important part of what binds the United States and Israel together.”
He added: “Rhetoric that seeks to marginalise one segment of their population is deeply concerning, it is divisive, and I can tell you that these are views the administration intends to communicate directly to the Israelis.”
Netanyahu's victory is clear break with US-led peace process
In his sports shop in the Palestinian village of Hizme, Mohammad al-Kiswani, aged 52, reflected bleakly on the re-election of Binyamin Netanyahu.
“When Netanyahu won,” he said, “he dried the last drop of water that could quench our thirst for a state. This time he will be more radical. He promised the Israeli public he will not negotiate a two-state solution or negotiate over Jerusalem. He has taken off his mask and it has shown an ugly face.”
Mohammad al-Mahdi, the 35-year-old owner of a publishing press, was no less concerned. “I think things will get worse. The future will be black.
“But you can’t blame the Israelis because they were so clear in this election campaign. I don’t think there will be peace. I don’t think there will be a two-state solution. There will only be a country full of hate and racism and that is so sad because the Israeli public are turning towards the far right.”
Could Netanyahu Win Actually Spell Progress for Palestinians?
Is the reelection of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week a possibly good thing for Palestinians and other who seek a just and peaceful end to Israeli apartheid, the occupation of the West Bank, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, and the overall conflict between Israel and a stateless Palestine?
Though he acknowledged it may seem "counterintuitive," the answer from Palestinian rights activist Yousef Munayyer, is—even if regrettably—'Yes.'
As Munayyer, executive director of the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, confessed in a prominently featured op-ed in the New York Times on Thursday, "Mr. Netanyahu’s victory is actually the best plausible outcome for those seeking to end Israel’s occupation. Indeed, I, as a Palestinian, breathed a sigh of relief when it became clear that his Likud Party had won the largest number of seats in the Knesset."
According to Munayyer's assessment, "The biggest losers in this election were those who made the argument that change could come from within Israel. It can’t and it won’t." In turn, those looking for a viable solution to the Israeli/Palestinian divide will have to look elsewhere, either to international institutions like the United Nations or the International Criminal Court, or to grassroots efforts and popular nonviolent tactics like the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS).
"The re-election of Mr. Netanyahu provides clarity," continued Munayyer. "[It]has convincingly proved that trusting Israeli voters with the fate of Palestinian rights is disastrous and immoral. His government will oppose any constructive change, placing Israel on a collision course with the rest of the world. And this collision has never been more necessary."
Blockupy: Thousands Protest in Frankfurt Calling on Eurozone to Dismantle "Laboratory for Austerity"
The EU demonstrates its abiding commitment to demockery by vetoing the acts of one of its member governments to provide for the welfare of its citizens.
Don’t pass new anti-poverty law, commission tells Greece
At less than 24 hours’ notice the European Commission has vetoed a key law set to be passed by the Greek parliament tomorrow.
The so-called “humanitarian crisis bill” was set to provide free electricity for some households, and address poverty among pensioners and homeless families.
But in a communication seen by Channel 4 News, Declan Costello, director at the EC’s directorate for economic and financial affairs, has ordered the radical left-led coalition governemnt in Greece to stop. A planned law to allow tax arrears to be paid in instalments, set before the Greek parliament on Thursday, has also been vetoed.
The move comes as Alexis Tsipras, the Greek PM called for five-party talks at Thursday’s summit, and ahead of a critical decision by the European Central Bank over restoring borrowing facilities to Greek banks.
EU to tell Greece time, patience running out
Euro zone leaders will tell Greece on Thursday that time and patience are running out for its leftist-led government to implement agreed reforms to avert a looming cash crunch that could force it out of the single currency.
Greece has been kept from bankruptcy by two international bailouts but now risks running out of money within weeks if it does not receive more funds. Greek banks reported the largest deposit withdrawals in a month, a sign savers are worried about the outlook for the country's finances and institutions.
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has requested a meeting with the leaders of Germany, France and the main EU institutions on the sidelines of a European Union summit to press for Athens to receive short-term funds to keep itself afloat.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel doused any expectation of a deal at the late-night session, saying decisions were up to the Eurogroup of finance ministers of the 19-nation euro area.
"I want to say: don't expect a solution, don't expect a breakthrough. It's not the right setting," she told reporters on arrival at the summit. "Decisions are made in the Eurogroup and that's how it will remain."
‘There is austerity for people, but not for Europe’s economic, political elite’
Homan Square: politicians push DoJ to investigate 'CIA or Gestapo tactics' at secret police site
US congressman and Cook County commissioner hand-deliver letter to Eric Holder and demand an ‘immediate investigation’ into secretive police facility
A day after the Guardian exposed the first in a series of allegations of incommunicado detention and abuse at the Chicago police facility known as Homan Square, Cook County commissioner Richard Boykin sent a letter to the US Department of Justice. Citing what he likened to “CIA or Gestapo tactics”, Boykin joined officials and human-rights groups from the nation’s capital to the west side of Chicago in calling for a federal investigation into the secretive site.
In the three weeks since, Boykin has taken an “eerily quiet” police-guided tour of the compound, as protesters well beyond Chicago call for formal inspections and a full-on shutdown, and Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the police department remain in denial ahead of a runoff election next month. Nor has there been a peep from the feds.
So on Wednesday, Boykin and US congressman Danny Davis found themselves walking into the justice department in Washington, acting under a new unofficial capacity: mailmen.
The duo hand-delivered pleas to the attorney general, Eric Holder, for “an immediate investigation” into Homan Square, and suggested that off-the-books interrogation may be a lever for long-sought justice on Chicago police abuse – and that questions over the secretive facility will not go unanswered.
Mall of America Security Catfished Black Lives Matter Activists, Documents Show
Documents obtained by The Intercept indicate that security staff at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota used a fake Facebook account to monitor local Black Lives Matter organizers, befriend them, and obtain their personal information and photographs without their knowledge.
Evidence of the fake Facebook account was found in a cache of files provided by the Mall of America to Bloomington officials after a large Black Lives Matter event at the mall on December 20 protesting police brutality. The files included briefs on individual organizers, with screenshots that suggest that much of the information was captured using a Facebook account for a person named “Nikki Larson.”
Metadata from some of the documents lists the software that created them as belonging to “Sam Root” at the “Mall of America.” A Facebook account for a Sam Root lists his profession as “Intelligence Analyst at Mall of America.”
The Mall of America declined to answer any questions about the Larson Facebook page. Reached for comment, Root said he ended his employment with Mall of America on January 27. Asked about the Nikki Larson page and the Black Lives Matter protest, Root said, “I can’t answer anything about that because it’s a case.”
Information collected from Facebook was used by the Mall of America security team to build dossiers on each activist. ... The Larson account appears to have been created in 2009, and had 817 friends, many of whose pages showed they were involved in Minnesota political activism. The account also “liked” Facebook groups associated with Ferguson activists, the American Indian Movement Interpretive Center, Occupy Minneapolis, SumOfUs, the SEIU Minnesota State Council, and Communities United Against Police Brutality, among others.
Police Accused of 'Brutalizing' Black UVA Student During St. Patrick’s Day Arrest
A University of Virginia (UVA) student was arrested early Wednesday by Virginia's Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control — the agency in charge of enforcing the state's alcohol laws — and reportedly suffered a head injury that left him bloodied and required 10 stitches.
The arrest record says Martese Johnson, an honor student at the college who has no previous criminal history, was intoxicated and belligerent. According to UVA's Cavalier Daily, Johnson was charged with "resisting arrest, obstructing justice without threats of force, and profane swearing or intoxication."
Students who witnessed the encounter said Johnson was "brutalized" by officers. A photo of the arrest showed him pinned on the ground and bleeding profusely. ...
"Outside of the doors of Trinity Irish Pub, a mass of University students bore witness to the officer's animalistic, insensitive, and brute handling of Martese," a statement by UVA's Black Student Alliance said. "He was left with his blood splattered on the pavement of University Avenue." ...
"His treatment was unprovoked as he did not resist questioning or arrest," the BSA statement said. "Though he lay bleeding and crying out, officers continued to hold him to the pavement, pinning him down, twisting his arm, with knees to his back until he was handcuffed."
UN panel to consider US 'failure' to clear up racial murders of civil rights era
A 2008 law ordered the Department of Justice to investigate pre-1970 unsolved cases but campaigners will tell the Human Rights Council it has not done enough
The US justice department will be accused in front of the United Nations on Thursday of failing to account for hundreds of African Americans who disappeared or were murdered by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan during the civil rights era.
The UN’s human rights council in Geneva will be told at a special meeting of its working group that the wave of racial violence that swept through the deep south in the 1940s, 50s and 60s has never been accounted for, despite a congressional law passed seven years ago that instructed the FBI to look again at the issue. The message will be delivered to the UN by a team of lawyers and civil rights experts from Syracuse University who have investigated scores of cold cases of race murders that have never been brought to justice.
They will tell the UN – as part of the world body’s review of the human rights record of the US that reaches a climax in May – that they have compiled a list of more than 300 suspicious killings that the FBI have not even recognized, let alone cleared up. By that calculation there have been hundreds, possibly thousands, of individual murderers who have killed in the name of white supremacy and enjoyed total impunity. ...
The issue has also been heightened by growing public concern about contemporary police shootings of unarmed black people such as Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York. The Syracuse experts will invite the UN to draw a parallel between the recent spate of police shootings and killings in the civil rigohts era, many of which occurred with the active co-operation or silence of local law enforcement agencies.
Texas prosecutor accused of misconduct for role in famous execution case
The state bar of Texas has filed a formal misconduct accusation against the prosecutor who secured a conviction in one of the country’s most dubious and disputed death penalty cases.
Earlier this month the bar lodged a petition in Navarro County, near Dallas, alleging that John Jackson withheld evidence that pointed to the innocence of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 for the murder of his three young daughters, who died in a house fire in 1991. ...
The petition, obtained by the criminal-justice journalism group the Marshall Project, alleges that he made multiple attempts to secure favourable treatment for an imprisoned informant named Johnny Webb, who testified that Willingham started the fire. ... The complaint also claims that Jackson dishonestly told a court that he had no evidence that could help Willingham’s defence. ...
Webb recanted his testimony in 2000 and gave interviews to the Marshall Project in 2014 in which he said he lied on the witness stand so that Jackson would help reduce his sentence and arrange thousands of dollars in help via a wealthy local rancher.
Despite mounting concern that Willingham was innocent, the former Texas governor Rick Perry refused to stay his execution. In 2009, after an investigation by the Texas forensic science commission found that the arson evidence was faulty, Perry replaced the board’s chairman and two other members and called Willingham “a monster”.
If found guilty, Jackson could be disbarred. He retired in 2012.
Adult interrogation tactics in schools turn principals into police officers
School administrators are being trained by the largest interrogation trainer in the world to extract confessions. This is only worsening the school-to-prison pipeline
Adult interrogation methods do not belong in the classroom, so why are school administrators throughout the United States being trained to use them on their students in order to extract confessions?
John E. Reid & Associates is the largest interrogation trainer in the world and teaches such methods to hundreds of school administrators each year. Last month, members of the Illinois Principals Association, for instance, could register for a “professional development” event on “Investigative Interviewing and Active Persuasion”. The School Administrators Association of New York State recently offered a workshop for administrators on this same topic, titled “Are you Sure They Are Telling the Truth”?
These administrators are learning the “Reid Technique”, which relies on “maximization” and “minimization” tactics in order to induce suspects to confess. Minimization focuses on reducing a suspect’s feelings of guilt, while maximization is designed to heighten suspect anxiety using confrontation. Both techniques are legal and both are incredibly coercive.
Controlled studies of Reid interrogation have documented that while such techniques may increase the likelihood that a guilty person will confess, they also increase the likelihood that an innocent person will as well. New research released in February found that the Reid technique causes witnesses to falsely implicate others.
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a report from Emma F Langdon of Victor, Colorado, on the resignation of Peabody and the statement given by Alva Adams as he departs Denver for his home in Pueblo.
Tune in at 2pm!
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Target joins competitors in raising minimum wage above federal standard
Target, the US’s second largest discount retailer, has become the latest big employer to raise its minimum wage.
From next month employees will be paid at least $9 an hour, according to reports, as the retailer joins Walmart and others in raising its basic hourly rate. Walmart, TJ Maxx, Gap and Ikea have all recently increased wages more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.
The wage increase reports come after Target became a focus of a “living wage” campaign by UltraViolet, a women’s advocacy group. The group spent $5,000 on online ads on sites like Google, Microsoft and Facebook that read: “Did you know there’s a Walmart near you that pays higher minimum wage than Target?”
“We can have a lot of impact for a little bit of money,” Karin Roland, organizing director of UltraViolet, told Reuters a week ago. “As far as we are concerned, that’s a starting place. If we see a strategic need to expand it, we will.”
The group Our Walmart, which has lobbied for higher wages and better treatment at Walmart stores, has also claimed credit for the Target’s announcement.
Obama Seeks Fast Track for TPP, Trade Deal that Could Thwart "Almost Any Progressive Policy or Goal"
World’s Richest One Percent Undermine Fight Against Economic Inequalities
'We cannot rely on technological fixes. We cannot rely on the market. And we cannot rely on the global elites. We need to help strengthen the power of the people to challenge the people with power.'
The growing economic inequalities between rich and poor – and the lopsided concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the world’s one percent – are undermining international efforts to fight global poverty, environmental degradation and social injustice, according to a civil society alliance.
Comprising ActionAid, Greenpeace, Oxfam and Civicus, the group of widely-known non-governmental organisations (NGO) and global charities warn about the widening gap and imbalance of power between the world’s richest and the rest of the population, which they say, is “warping the rules and policies that affect society, creating a vicious circle of ever growing and harmful undue influence.”
The group identifies a list of key concerns – including tax avoidance, wealth inequality and lack of access to healthcare – as being unduly influenced by the world’s wealthiest one percent.
In a statement released Thursday, on the eve of the World Social Forum (WSF) scheduled to take place in Tunis Mar. 24-28, the group argues the concentration of wealth and power is now a critical and binding factor that must be challenged “if we are to create lasting solutions to poverty and climate change.” ...
“Securing a just and sustainable world means challenging the power of the one percent,” the group says.
The Evening Greens
Here's What Coal Mining Is Doing to Communities in the Navajo Nation
For sixty years, the billions of tons of coal found beneath Arizona's Black Mesa have powered the cities of the Southwest. But getting at all that coal has meant the displacement of more than 12,000 people of the Navajo Nation, one of the largest removals of Native Americans since the 19th century. For those that have remained, the mining process has compromised their health and their environment.
The mesa rises up from the dry Arizona landscape a few miles south of Kayenta Township, where Peabody Energy operates a mine that in 2013 produced nearly eight million tons of coal. The company proposed in May 2012 to expand its excavation, a plan that needs approval from the Interior Department's Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation, and Enforcement (OSMRE). Locals are concerned because that would add 841 acres of land to the Kayenta Mine complex — which would displace even more Navajo and ensure continued air and water contamination for decades to come.
Stop Talking About Climate Change, House Republicans Tell the Pentagon and CIA
The new Republican majority in Congress really, really doesn't like climate science.
GOP budgeters in the House of Representatives have singled out the study of climate change by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an example of government "waste" they aim to eliminate.
The framework laid out by the House Budget Committee this week lists climate science as an example of "areas where there should be room to cut waste, eliminate redundancies and end the abuse or misuse of taxpayer dollars."
David G. Hawkins, director of the climate program at the environmentalist Natural Resources Defense Council, called the swipe at climate science "stupid but not surprising."
"It's just a political stunt for these people," Hawkins told VICE News. "Because they are so locked into denial on the issue of climate protection, they think it's politically easy to identify these activities to cut," he said. "It's very unwise, and most of the time the people who are sponsoring these cuts are the ones who say we ought to listen to our military leaders." ...
The idea that the buildup of carbon emissions in the atmosphere is warming the planet may remain politically controversial, but it's accepted as fact by an overwhelming majority of scientists. And generals and admirals — hardly your typical tree-huggers — see trouble in a future of rising oceans, stronger storms, and prolonged drought.
California Stiffens Water Regulations Amid Devastating Drought
As California approaches the end of a disappointing rainy season, officials are further narrowing restrictions on water usage to help stave off the effects of the state's ravaging four-year drought crisis.
Following record-low rainfall from December to April, with no extra precipitation expected for the rest of the year, the California State Water Resources Control Board voted Tuesday to increase emergency regulations on water usage for citizens and businesses alike.
"If conditions continue as they are likely to over the next two weeks, we’ll have less than half of the previous lowest reading," California Department of Water Resources spokesperson Doug Carlson told Yahoo News on Tuesday. "There is going to be almost nothing this year, which is pretty alarming." ...
On Tuesday, Mark Morford of the San Francisco Chronicle coined a term for the sense of looming dread that sneaked up on the state after four years of growing drought: California Water Anxiety Syndrome.
"If you live here, you already know," he writes. "California, as you might have heard, is running out of water. Very, very quickly. And there’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it."
Morford continued:
We cannot make it snow. We cannot ever replace that pumped-out groundwater—need another Ice Age for that. We cannot refill our dried lakebeds. There is no pipeline large enough to transport trillions of gallons over from Boston. This is what we’re not accustomed to: No amount of money, no amount of political posturing, no display of military might, no act of Congress, no amount of chemicals, no amount of whistling by the graveyard can bring more water.
Conservationist murders threaten Costa Rica's eco-friendly reputation
Every night throughout the nesting season, from March to July, leatherback turtles crawl beyond the tideline to lay scores of eggs in holes laboriously scraped in the sand.
Each turtle can lay up to 80 of the cue-ball-sized eggs, but only a fraction remain safely in their nests: most are plundered by poachers who sell them on the black market as aphrodisiacs. It’s a lucrative trade for the poachers, but disastrous for the turtles, which have been pushed to the brink of extinction by the illegal trade.
In recent years, conservationists have joined in the race to find eggs, which were reburied in a secure location. But frustrated poachers soon began to retaliate with attacks on the volunteers. In May 2013, the conflict culminated in the murder of 26-year-old conservation activist Jairo Mora. Kidnapped while collecting turtle eggs, Mora was beaten and dragged behind a car until he died of asphyxiation in the sand.
Seven alleged poachers were accused of the murder but all were acquitted on 26 January, and conservation groups, spooked by the slaying and the lack of justice in the case, have not returned to collect eggs on Moín Beach. ...
Costa Rica’s Federation for the Conservation of the Environment (Fecon) has recorded 66 crimes against environmentalists in the country since 2002. In every case, the victims said they were targeted for their environmental work. The list features some relatively minor crimes such as vandalism, but it also includes assaults, robberies and murder.
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